The Cheap and Easy Way to Power

This was originally posted November 12, 2016.


"So what you have is a voting base consisting of evangelical Christians, ultranationalists, racists, disaffected, angry, white working-class sectors that have been hit very hard....[and] an increase in mortality among these sectors, that just doesn’t happen in developed societies." Noam Chomsky, Today's GOP Candidate for "most dangerous organization in human history"

The easiest way to power is to pump the masses with false hope and fantasized superiority. Tell them they deserve to be angry because they are worth more than the "others" who are lower down on the scale of privilege.

Begin with very powerful interests like big corporations. Tell them over and over again they alone are saving the world from poverty by creating money; that money is pure power which rises above the complexities of human nature. Tell them your party will be on their side as long as you get the funding you need to carry the campaign to the end.

Then simply use the same method, with different instructions to the masses.  Even though they are not included in decision making policy, and not in the room where policies are created, they need to call on an "inherent superiority" such as class or skin colour. Then change the teachings of your prophets to match your agenda.

Don't bring facts or intellect into the campaign. It emphasizes reason, knowledge and leads to social justice. Once ideas are debated there are no winners. Intelligence is a private muscle which will stay true to the party line as long as there is a salary, otherwise it will wander off. Raise children to be suspicious of their own experience and interpretation of the world, replace their self worth with doubt and self contempt. The earlier the mind is intercepted with doctrine the easier it is to influence and control. "Give me a child until he is seven and he will be mine for life", said a priest.

Set one group against another. This builds a multi-generational division where parents will do most of the indoctrination. Catholic versus protestant. Christians versus Moslems, Jews, Hindu's and all other faiths. Liberal versus Conservative, Wealthy versus Poor, Men versus Women, Man versus Nature. This ensures the ongoing war in the minds and hearts of every living creature.  This also ensures that good ideas will never replace fear.

Once these systems are established, they will prevail and be generated by the poorest and weakest of the world. The oppressed become oppressors (Freire). For thousands of years this is how humanity has been governed. As long as they are in denial about their own needs and worth, they will fall in line and do your bidding.

There have been different labels and descriptors for ruling systems but they operate on the same principle - it is the worship of power over life. The holding up of violence over compassion. The celebration of ignorance over self-knowledge.

When life is not held as sacred it's easy to make abortion illegal while planning to starve the offspring.

However, the essential and everlasting way to power is that of a society built on the free and enduring inquiry of who we are and what we can do to solve the problems that face us.